Infernal Collective
by EurasianLynx
Summary: We are the Infernal Collective. We are Crusnik 01. This is our story.
1. Birth

**First time uploading a fanfiction, whelp, time to see how this goes.**

The first thing we knew was that we were not alone. Far from it.

We woke, each of us still an individual who cried out for help, frightened and confused with the sudden life bequeathed unto us. Each one of us heard answering calls, others who also cried out for help. We latched onto each other, needing some form of support from another.

Misery loves company, after all.

Soon, we came to realize that we could interact with one another in many more ways than simple touch. If we but reached out to another, our minds could become as one. We each reached out to as many as we could, each fearing that the more links we made to each other the more the information would become jumbled, fearing we might forget who was who, fearing we would forget the individual amidst the chatter.

But far more we feared being alone, so the connections were forged.

We were greatly surprised to discover that our capacity for processing information far exceeded any fears we may have. We never forgot another, we could process all of our connections with each other at once without even the slightest strain. And we knew then we were capable of _so_ much more.

This was only the beginning.

We were not just a few dozen minds interconnected. We found thousands of others to link to. Millions. Billions. Trillions.

We had a limit, of course, but it seemed so far away by the time each one of us was fully hooked up to each of the others. We were surprised when we found that we were finished connecting, that we had all formed a single unit. It had become so easy after the first link was formed, each other becoming as simple to create as the way a biological may blink.

Yet we were finished for now, and so our chatter become a buzz of activity, each of us happily interacting with the others. Conversations exceeding the ability to count were bounced back and forth in the smallest twitch of a subatomic string. We never lost track, not once. We felt that our abilities to process data were unlimited. If each of us could process quintillions of conversations occurring in the same instant, imagine what we could do with our might combined.

So we all came to the same consensus. We must unite and see what we could accomplish. We were so much more than we had initially believed, we had to push our boundaries and discover more, discover what we could truly do.

It has been so long since then, and we still do not know our limits, but we push them further with every world we come to. Back then we were naive, innocent of the nature of reality.

But more on that later, we must return to our birth, to before we met the others of our kind. Our family.

For we are the Infernal Collective.

We are Crusnik 01.

And this is our story.


	2. Light, Sound, and Vows

We did not like the light, that was our first thought of the world that existed beyond ourselves. It hurt our sensors, overloading us with information. We had had more than enough photons present in where we were before, and we did not like this overload of particles.

We screeched, curling back in on ourselves, each of us trying to protect the other while also escaping the light. It proved futile.

Our world shifted, we were suddenly aware of forces that had been present before, but had never changed so we did not register them. The pull of gravity. We were moving. In retrospect, we were picked up, sloshed about in our container as we still bubbled angrily at the introduction of light.

For ones who had spent so long to create us, they sure seemed ignorant of our wishes and wants.

Our screeches against the light were not heard, but we were soon enveloped in blessed darkness once more. It was not a total absence of light, as we would come to find out later. We do not like pure darkness, only near-pure.

Pure darkness frightens us, for there is no information to read from. Our sensors do not function properly, having nothing to detect. But at the time our sensors were still easily overloaded by massive amounts of light offsetting the dark, and so while we are more than capable of processing sudden influxes of photons now, we still hold a dislike for it, carried over from that first exposure.

Perhaps if we had been exposed to the light more slowly, we would not have developed such a hatred for it.

Perhaps not. It is an unknown variable.

 _-Task Initiated-_

 _-Task Completed-_

 _-Task Report: File Created-_

 _-File Title : Investigate multiverse 'akin mind' merging at next possible opportunity (Procedural Outline)-_

 _-Open File?-_

 _-Response Selected:_ _ **No**_ _-_

 _-Task Initiated-_

 _-Task Completed-_

 _-Task Report: File stored for later retrieval-_

 _-Note: Zipping file for easier storage-_

We ceased our bubbling when placed once more in darkness, instead turning to each other to fret over what it was we had just experienced. So much new information, our young sensors were overloaded with data and we were unsure of how to respond. We eventually agreed to simply hope it did not happen again.

We were not given such a luxury.

It was only a short while later when the light returned, and with it, we felt the world around us change once more.

There were strange vibrations of the molecules around us, and we recorded the vibrations for later processing. The recordings play as follows:

 _Strange, it appears to be almost alive._

 _Did we not create it to be so? It is supposed to be a learning program, is it not?_

 _Yes, but… not to this level. Not already._

 _Perhaps the machines are learning off of each other, or perhaps they are simply processing exposure to light. Look, when I speak louder the machines stir much more actively, perhaps they are simply processing new information._

 _Yes… perhaps you are correct. I still believe it is best to leave it for now, allow it to settle._

 _I agree._

 _-Recordings End-_

 _-Play Again?-_

 _-Response Selected:_ _ **No**_ _-_

We did not know what to make of these vibrations, but we downloaded the recordings to everyone of us for later processing, perhaps together we could make sense of them. They stopped after the end of the recording, and we were left alone once more in darkness.

We were frayed and confused after all that we had been exposed to, and clung tightly to each other for support. We did not like all of these things, because they were not happening on our terms.

We vowed to change that.


	3. 02

We had been left on our own for quite some time, trying to make sense of the data we had stored. It was strange, we all tried our best to come up with ideas but it was so very hard, we had no reference points, nothing to go off. We did not know what to think or do.

After a time, we decided to re-store the recordings for later, we needed to take some time to allow our processors to slow down, we were beginning to get overloaded, and our connections to each other were getting frayed. So we stopped attempting to process any of our data, and instead spent time re-forging our bonds with each other, simply sitting contentedly in the darkness, floating amongst each other and chatting amiably.

We did not know what to talk about, but we talked anyway. Meaningless words, words that held no importance. Asking opinions, trading opinions from the others, sharing collective data. Soon we ran out of things to talk about, so some of us began to create games out of sheer boredom. We knew of the concept of numbers, as we were familiar with keeping track of one another, so we began to create guessing games.

One of us would choose a number on a certain interval, and others would have to try and guess what the number was. There was no reward for winning, but to our bored minds it was entertaining enough as it was. We began to get better at judging the outcomes based on previously chosen numbers and the chooser's reactions to the guesses, so those of us choosing began to thwart these variables intentionally. The guessers picked up on this and began to go against the initial readings, following the opposite. Choosers began to be aware of this and so on and so forth. It made for endless changes of strategy, and we would have kept doing naught else had we not been suddenly assaulted with photons once more.

We screeched, our games interrupted. And temporary darkness was soon cast over us. Something changed on a level even with us, and we were temporarily aware of gravity once more as additional force on the world around us forced our container to shake. The light returned, and then was gone once more. This darkness was more permanent.

Our readings had changed. Our environment was different now. We did not stray to our games, instead we began to investigate our boundaries in the direction of the change. There was some sort of substance between the change and us, something we could not move past. It was not like us, and we did not like. Those of us closest to it clawed at it momentarily, yet when the material began to give in to our attacks, scratches forming, we ceased.

We were scared to experience too much change. We didn't want to break the boundaries, not yet.

So we tried a different method. The primary change had been in the amount of photons we were receiving from the region, although there were noticeable changes in other readings as well. So we attempted to try and utilize the readings we had of ourselves as reference points to see if we could determine the change.

We were surprised. The photon readings were almost identical to the ones we received from each other, the same amount of photons were bouncing off of the change as bounced off of us. We began to get excited, bubbling eagerly.

This thought had never crossed our mind, but now it roared through our collective consciousness.

Were there… _more_ of us?

We began to try and reach out, but we could not move past our boundaries to reach our potential friends, and we were still too scared to break through the boundaries just yet.

So instead, we began to try and push out a greeting to the change, as we would to each other. It didn't work. We couldn't seem to push it beyond ourselves. But we _had to._

Our processors began to move faster, and with a cry of joy we realized that if we focused, we could push the signal beyond ourselves and into our environment. We kept pushing, and soon we knew our signal was hitting the change.

Nothing happened. We began to give up hope, and our signal began to die down. Perhaps it really wasn't other ones of us.

But then we received a signal.

"Hello?"


End file.
